Introducing Our Corporate Consulting Service Offering
Finance is one of the most critical aspects of business that you need to get right. Getting a second opinion on all your decision-making is equally crucial. In this brief interview, our managing partner Stuart Hendler, head of MGI Bass Gordon’s Corporate Consulting division, explains the benefits of our corporate consulting services and how our impartial advice can holistically empower your bottom line.
Finance is one of the most critical aspects of business that you need to get right. Getting a second opinion on all your decision-making is equally crucial.
In this brief interview, our managing partner Stuart Hendler, head of MGI Bass Gordon’s Corporate Consulting division, explains the benefits of our corporate consulting services and how our impartial advice can holistically empower your bottom line.
With decades of extensive experience in restructuring, valuations, and wealth management consulting, Stuart’s focus remains vested in problem-solving and providing enduring value.
Stuart, as a business owner, why should I spend time reading this article?
Anybody keen on understanding the value of their business, planning a merger or restructure, or wanting to buy or sell a business, is sure to pick up valuable points below.
What role do you see the Corporate Consulting division playing at MGI Bass Gordon?
With exponential growth over recent years, we’ve built a strong and experienced team who performs a key role in MGI’s suite of advisory services. Our firm also has extensive additional resources available that provides our clients the very best holistic advice.
What gets you up in the morning?
My two Golden Doodles. They jump on my bed every morning at 6.00 am, so that I can get up and prepare their morning breakfast. Once up, I look forward to the role of providing solutions to my clients’ problems. You quickly realise that there are no quick fixes and you need to plot and plan your way to come to the desired outcome. It doesn’t happen in one quick step. I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of coming up with the right solution and then, through a series of steps, like a chess game, managing this process to finality.
What’s the number one difference you believe you make for your clients?
Being a client-centric organization, our advice is tailor-made to each client’s specific needs. Ultimately, our goal is to provide optimal solutions using our most skilled resources.
Should I engage in your services, how often do we meet?
This depends on your unique needs, but at the very least, just as you would your physician, we’ll meet once a year. Where there’s a unique transaction or corporate activity that requires more extensive input, then our meetings are more frequent.
When it comes to additional funding for my business what is the optimal approach?
The financing of any business is a complicated affair. Firstly, its debt-equity level must be analyzed. If working capital needs to be financed, then short-term funding like overdraft facilities or invoice discounting are sound options. Should asset-backed financing or capital assets be required, long-term funding, like installment sales agreements, are preferrable.
Ideally, you need to match your financing to the asset you’re trying to establish or grow. You don’t want a situation where huge amounts of working capital are used to finance capital assets, thereby putting the short-term liquidity of your business under pressure.
How do my tax affairs impact the scope of your financial advice?
The effective tax rates in South Africa are very high – if you consider company tax, or Capital Gains Tax, plus Dividends Withholding Tax, the effective tax rate is between 37% and 45%. Therefore, tax has a huge impact on how you conduct your business affairs and any advice in a transaction, merger, or acquisition.
Does your team assist with decision-making around potential dividends to stakeholders?
Most businesses intend to maximize shareholder wealth. Retaining excess cash often erodes shareholder wealth, therefore, a prudent dividend policy is important. Excessive dividend payouts (which may prevent and jeopardize the growth of the business) must be avoided. Our team will work out the optimal re-investment rate required to grow your business and maximize returns on equity.
Should I ever consider selling my business in the precarious economic landscape both locally and internationally, do you offer exit strategy advice?
A core part of our operation is advising on M&A transactions. Identifying the optimal time to buy or sell is critical. Depending on the life cycle of your business and management team, we’ll advise you on the ideal exit strategy relative to succession planning, personal, or market conditions. We get that you want to sell your business at maximum value, so we assist you in identifying that value while guiding you along the best steps to dispose of it.
What is your best advice for business owners currently?
In any major decision, you need a trusted advisor who’ll provide you with the most objective and relevant advice. At MGI Bass Gordon we try and optimise this type of relationship.
Providing complete governance and oversight of your business’s financial activities and capital investment decisions, MGI Bass Gordon proudly offers:
Business Valuations
Property Valuations
Mergers and Acquisitions
Corporate Restructures
Due Diligence Investigations
Forecasting and Feasibility Studies
Employee Share Incentives
Exit Planning
Business rescue process planning and administration, if required
To experience exactly how we make business personal at MGI Bass Gordon and the many innovative ways we’ll meet your corporate consulting needs, start the conversation with Stuart today: +27 21 405 8500 or send an email toinfo@bassgordon.co.za
MGI Worldwide is a leading international network of separate and independent accounting, legal and consulting firms that are licensed to use "MGI" or "member of MGI Worldwide" in connection with the provision of professional services to their clients. MGI Worldwide is the brand name referring to a group of members of MGI Ltd., a company limited by guarantee and registered in the Isle of Man with registration number 013238V, who choose to associate as a network as defined in IESBA and EU rules. MGI Worldwide itself is a non-practising entity and does not provide professional services to clients. Services are provided by the member firms of MGI Worldwide. MGI Worldwide and its member firms are not agents of, and do not obligate, one another and are not liable for one another’s acts or omissions
